It is always easier to do ten-year forecasting than one-year forecasting, but it is especially true now. Stuck in 2009, it seems impossibly difficult to forecast the future because the present is so messy. Now however—in the midst of the mess—is exactly the time when ten-year forecasting can be most valuable. 2009 is authentically frightening, but it also has great potential to be a springboard year.
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are likely to get worse in 2009. Many people are already choking on uncertainty most of the time—especially people on the down side of the rich/poor gap. Some leaders are still expecting a return to predictability.
As someone who has been doing ten-year forecasting for more than thirty-five years, let me be very clear about my view: if you are not confused by 2009 and the future we are facing, you are not paying attention. The future cannot help you unless you are willing to listen through the confusion. You cannot learn from the future if you are overwhelmed by the present or stuck in the past.
I believe that the next decade, beginning in 2009, will be characterized by both danger and opportunity. Leaders will be buffeted, but they need not allow themselves to be depressed or immobilized. Leaders must do more than just respond to crises, though respond they must. Some of today’s leaders have already turned nasty out of frustration, with considerable cause. Still, leaders can be positive change agents in the midst of chaos. Some things can get better, even as other things get worse. Organizations need a readiness discipline that assumes uncertainty, but achieves success nonetheless.
Ten-year forecasters can help leaders gain perspective by looking long. One of the reasons for the current economic crisis is that short-term betting dominated long-term thought in many marketplaces. Foresight can provoke insight, even if you don’t agree with the forecast. A discipline of thinking from foresight to insight to action leads—almost always—to better decisions in the present.
Problem-solvers beware: even though solvable problems will still abound in the next decade, top leaders will deal mostly with dilemmas where there is no solution—but where you have to make decisions anyway. The best leaders will thrive in the space between judgment too soon (the classic mistake of the problem solver) and deciding too late (the classic mistake of the academic). Leaders will not be able to control or problem solve through volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Leaders must learn how to see through the mess with a global futures perspective, to sense patterns of change. That is what ten-year forecasting is all about.
2019 is much more clear than 2009, if only leaders take the time to look long. We know, for example, that 2019 will be a world with sensors and wireless everywhere—even in the developing world. We know that Facebook generation will be in leadership positions by 2019, though their ways of leading are only just becoming apparent. My assessment is that 2009 is the beginning of a threshold decade: our natural systems will reach tipping points of extreme challenge and some of those systems may break. Our business, organizational, and social systems will be stretched too, some of them to the breaking point.
We also know that we will be even more connected in 2019 than we are today. I believe that the more connected we are, the safer we are, the more free we are, and the more powerful we are—if we realize the benefits of connectivity. We are more connected than ever before and we are—almost everyone is—globally connected. But there are downsides: the more connected we are, the more dangerous it can be, as our current economic crisis is revealing. Leaders must make the links, draw the connections, organize people for action—but protect against the dangers inherent in super-connectivity.
Leaders must engage with chaotic global future forces and figure out how to make a better future. Certainly, the focus for many people in 2009 must be on holding the fort and surviving. But in every organization, there should be at least a small band of leaders with license to think about and plan for the future. 2009 is threatening, but it is also an ideal time to be looking ahead—beyond the current crises. If we stew ourselves in 2009, we’ll never get to 2019. Those organizations that do nothing but hunker down in this crisis will be way behind when things start getting better.
Leaders can make the future, but they won’t make it all at once and they can’t make it alone. 2009 can be a springboard year, if leaders use foresight to spark their own insight and inform their own action.
Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow at Institute for the Future. This perspective is adapted from his new book called Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World, which will be published by Berrett-Koehler in April 2009.